Life in the Senior Lane: Looking back while moving forward

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Who would think that just across the street from our abode I would be treated to a series of exceptional educational evenings courtesy of the Vineyard Haven Public Library. That’s where the William Faulkner scholar Phillip Weinstein is enlightening a packed house about two of Faulkner’s key works: “The Sound and the Fury” (no easy read!) and “Light in August.”

“The Sound and the Fury” with my Compson family tree notes to help me keep that dysfunctional clan straight!

A big thanks to Betty Burton, who heads up the library’s adult programs, and Phil, a seasonal Vineyard resident and English Professor at Swarthmore College. Oh, he’s also the author of “Becoming Faulkner: The Art and Life of William Faulkner,” former head of the William Faulkner Society and has published papers including “Faulkner’s Subject: A Cosmos No One Owns” and “What Else But Love? The Ordeal of Race in Faulkner and Morrison.” He knows of what he speaks! At Swarthmore, his courses have included: “Faulkner, Morrison, and the Representation of Race” and “The Subject in Question.” That offering is described as follows..

How do we become who we are? What social discourses and practices enable the shaping of identity? How does reading affect this process? This course will explore the ways in which subjectivity and ideology interpenetrate within a range of texts and our commentary upon them. Writers will include Shakespeare, Flaubert, Kafka, Faulkner, Rich, Morrison, and DeLillo. Theoretical essays may also be assigned.

Isn’t any humanities course that addresses a question like “How do we become who we are?” a must for young adults?! Recently, The New York Times ran a page one story that caught my attention: “Interest Fading in Humanities, Colleges Worry.” Yikes! That is worrisome. Not surprisingly, the fear is that the humanities are loosing favor to STEM offerings. Not being a STEM herd, the acronym was new to me. It’s the term for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. No wonder. Whenever possible, I avoided the STEM Gang like the plague in any of my past centers of higher learning.

The article points out that “while humanities majors often have trouble landing their first job, their professors say that over the long term, employers highly value their critical thinking skills.” I mean who would you rather sit next to at dinner, a STEM nerd or Phil Weinstein!

But this is no laughing matter. Look at the definition of humanities on the Stanford University website to see the importance of how the subjects clustered under the heading of humanities such as English or history can shape an aware global citizen:

The humanities can be described as the study of the myriad ways in which people, from every period of history and from every corner of the globe, process and document the human experience. Since humans have been able, we have used philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history and language to understand and record our world. These modes of expression have become some of the subjects that traditionally fall under the humanities umbrella. Knowledge of these records of human experience gives us the opportunity to feel a sense of connection to those who have come before us, as well as to our contemporaries.

Don’t we have to better “understand our world” to make it a better one…albeit with the help of technology in getting the message across, for example, via social media?

As Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, noted in The Times article, “Many do not understand that the study of humanities offers skills that will help them sort out values, conflicting issues and fundamental philosophical questions.”

At Stanford, the history department’s courses “teach the foundational knowledge and skills (analytical, interpretive, writing) necessary for understanding the deep connections between past and present.” Outmoded thinking, not applicable to solving today’s conflicts around the world? Hardly!

Alas, Stanford is out of reach for me – geographically and academically. But I’ve got the little library that could and does help me understand the world in which we live.

The Vineyard Haven Public Library, a stone’s throw from our house. Lucky me.

Years ago I did a school paper on the 19th century artist Mary Cassatt. I remember the laborious job of researching, hunting down tidbits in the library. Alas, no internet to speed the project along. So, I was taken by New York magazine’s clever interpretation of Cassatt’s “Girl in the Garden,” 1880-82, on the cover of its September 19-October 2 issue (above). This girl is not contemplating the botanical wonders around her, but intently studying her iPhone, EarPods firmly planted to drown out any bird tweets or other natural sounds found in such a setting.

The visual is perfect for illustrating Andrew Sullivan’s story, “I Used to Be a Human Being.” As a pull-out for the story notes: “An endless bombardment of news and gossip and images has rendered us manic information addicts. It broke me. It might break you, too.”

Inside the magazine, the altered paintings are just as eye-catching. Take Edouard Manet’s “Le déjeuner sur l’Herbe,”1863 (above), where one of the picnic diners takes a photo with his iPhone of the couple he is with; or the depressing portrait depicted in Edward Hopper’s “Hotel Room,” 1931 (below). Here, a lonely woman types out a text.

Read the story, even if you have to do it on an iPhone.

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Then I came across a book review with quotes from the book describing the person in the book’s title. I found the quotes hauntingly familiar. It sure sounded like the book’s author could be talking about traits found in one of our Presidential candidates.

For instance, the title character is…
“a rabble-rouser” – regarded by many as a self-obsessed “clown” with a strangely “scattershot, impulsive style.”

“He is often described in the book as an egomaniac who ‘only loved himself.’ “

“His manic speeches and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his capacity for self-control even his sanity.”

He is described by someone quoted in the book as a “swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.”

“He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers..and offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order.”

He ” ‘promised to lead (his country) to a new era of national greatness,’ though he was typically vague about his actual plans.”

The recently-published book is by the historian Volker Ullrich and tells the story of “how a ‘most unlikely pretender to high state office’ achieved absolute power in a once democratic country and set it on a course of monstrous horror.”

With all this talk about Donald Trump calling a former Miss Universe, Alicia Machado, “Miss Piggy,” among other unflattering names, it got me wondering: How many pounds is the candidate carrying around?

He usually appears wearing a jacket that camouflages any protruding girth, but here’s a photo where the man looks terribly tubby. His doctor recently reported that Trump weighs 236 lbs, making him overweight and on the verge of obesity for his height, 6′ 3″. He’s just five pounds shy of being labeled obese under the body mass index.

Obviously Trump is not interested in setting any kind of healthy example with a sane diet and wise exercise regime. He likes to boast about his unhealthy eating habits as he demonstrates by wolfing down McDonald’s hamburgers and buckets of KFC friend chicken. “I work out on occasion…as little as possible,” he said at a 1997 news conference during which he mocked the weight of reporters.

Yes, there are heavier issues to discuss during this election season, but I couldn’t resist weighing in…

OK, call me sexist. But can we talk about this scary trio, particularly their coifs, although I know we could say so much more about these lads than something so insignificant as what swirls on top of their heads. Like what’s inside them!!

Take a look: The Donald and two of his faithful, the unkempt Steve Bannon (top right), CEO of Trump’s campaign; and Trump’s Medicine Man, Jacob B0rnstein. I wonder if he wears a hairnet when examining his patients, like food workers do.

That you could pay for four years at a top university or a nice roof over your head instead, not to mention more worthwhile items such as charitable contributions?

Recently, The Bag with its white gold hardware set with diamonds weighing close to 10 carats was auctioned off in Hong Kong in four minutes to a private collector (Would you want your name out there for such a purchase?!) who paid $244,490, apparently setting a record for this type of extravagance. Prices for The Bag obviously vary depending on the source.

We are told on vogue.com that The Bag is made of Nilo crocodile, in a dyed grayish white tone “that is meant to evoke images of the majestic Himalayan mountains.” So get on a plane and check out the Himalayan mountains in the flesh – that trip certainly can be had for less than 400K.

And here we have two other members of the shameful Birkin Brigade – Kris Jenner and Victoria Beckham.

I thought years ago it was made illegal to use crocodile. There is a horrifying video online showing how crocodiles are slaughtered on a Texas farm so their skins can end up in fashion accessories such as handbags, watch straps and belts.

Speaking of Texas, Robert Smith, a hedge fund fellow, and his wife, Hope Dworaczyk, a Playboy Playmate who appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice, requested a handbag dealer in FL find 30 Birkins to give away at a staff Christmas party. The dealer, Jeff Berk, was given a budget of $500,000. Oh, I guess no crocodile for the staff. “It took us 30 days (to round up the bags), but we did it,” noted a proud Mr. Berk.

Quick! What weighs 5 pounds and is 900 pages? No, notMy Wallflower Years Revisited, the abridged version. But this read is just as riveting. It’s Shakespeare’s First Folio and you may get the chance to see it up close thanks to a traveling exhibition, “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare.” The Folio (below), published in 1623, just seven years after the great bard’s demise, collected 36 of Shakespeare’s plays. The book is on loan from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington. “In a moment where information seems to be everywhere,” noted Michael Witmore, director of the Folger, in an interview, “it’s startling to be reminded that the sole conduit of some of these incredibly influential plays is a physical object made out of rag paper.” Yes!

“A letter posted in London before 10 o’clock could reach its recipient in the country by dinner time the same day.”

This nugget of information comes from “Bloomsbury at Home,” a wonderful book chronicling life in the various homes of the impossibly talented Bloomsbury set, circa late 19th century, early 20th, one of those bygone eras of mucho letter writing for sure.

I know, I know, today we tweet and text and that prose is delivered in lightening speed that would leave the stunned Dowager Countess of Grantham grasping for her smelling salts. But check this out. Here’s a couple, profiled on a recent“Sunday Morning” (CBS) segment, who may not be into letter-writing, but they’ve managed to create a digital literary keepsake that harkens back to the good old days, sort of. It’s not exactly a diary of letters –Patrick Geraghty and Kristie Damell never wrote letters to one another, but a 21st century slant on one. “We had a whole history by text,” Patrick noted. So, this paragon of a husband printed those text messages (from the day they first met through their first anniversary) had them bound in a hardcover album (below) and presented it to Kristie on anniversary No. 1.Anymore where he came from?

Now, something for the small fry. How cute is this! The name, the colors. Fab.

Turtle Mail is a small wooden toy mailbox (above) for kids that prints messages sent via Wi-Fi from its web or desktop app. The idea came when one of the founders, Alysia Finger, noticed that when her daughter turned one-year-old, for gifts she was getting “really flashy electronics that felt like they were built for adults and just wrapped in rubber and plastic and marketed as kids products.” A word to the wise: “What I heard over and over during my interviews with parents and caregivers,” Finger told “Wired” magazine, “is that they were exhausted with screen time, apps, and video games…Many expressed how hard it was to get their kids off of computers and tablets.” Gee, what a surprise…For more about Turtle Mail go to: http://aedreams.com/turtle-mail/.

No doubt you’ve been following our hard-to-avoid political theatrics on display at state primaries and caucuses. You’ve listened to campaign trail rants and debate shouting matches. And on the eve of tomorrow’s primary in Florida, you’ve witnessed violence and dust-ups. You’ve noticed a lot of talk – yelling – about bigness, from the gaping mouth of Donald Trump, the candidate with big bucks, super-size ego, tall order insults and alleged anatomical largesse.

Nothing small about the man, except his notion of taste. I was reminded of this character flaw, just one of many, right, when hearing about “The Polish Brigade.” That’s the gang of undocumented workers (from Poland) corralled by the Trump people in 1980 to demolish the old Bonwit Teller building, below, on Fifth Ave. to make way for the architectural clunker known as Trump Tower.

Just compare the two. Erected in 1929, the BT building was first known as the Stewart & Company store. Designed by the architects Whitney Warren and Charles Wetmore, traditional Beaux-Arts creators of mansions and clubs, it had an entranceway that was a “stupendously luxurious mix of limestone, bronze, platinum and hammered aluminum,” according to The New York Times. It was called “a sparkling jewel in keeping with the character of the store,” noted American Architect magazine at the time. “At the very top of the facade were limestone relief panels of two early naked (and therefore controversial) women brandishing large scarves, as if dancing,” The Times tells us. Check them out up close, above, during Trump’s demolition derby.

According to the paper, Trump had promised the limestone reliefs of the dancing women to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which wanted them for its sculpture collection. But they never made the trip up Fifth Ave. The workmen jackhammered them to bits. What caring follow through by the business man!

Now take a gander at the dark, soulless Trump Tower. What can you say about it?That it’s ugly? Check. That it lacks any notable architectural detail or historical import? Double check.

This whole out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new led me justa skip up Fifth Ave. where sits another venerable retailer, Bergdorf Goodman which has been at that location since 1928. Now the building is one of the backlogged properties The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is deciding the fate of. To grant landmark status to or not.

Talk about historical significance. First off, think what originally stood there: the 1883 Cornelius Vanderbilt II mansion, the modest dwelling below, designed by George B Post and Richard Morris Hunt. Then realize had the city’s landmarks law been passed not a century ago, but just a few decades earlier, the Vanderbilt mansion would almost certainly be with us today.

Long may BG stand and just a few reasons why it should:

*Home to those classic lavender boxes with the fashionable ladies striding across the covers which I remember from my grandmother’s closet

*Launching pad for the designer Halston, first known for his millenary. Here, Halston adjusts one of his chapeaus.